Defeating Thermal

I wanted something that would defeat thermal devices that I could throw up real quick. My friend found used military ULCANS thermal netting from Old Grouch Military Surplus so we both decided to buy it. Below is a picture from their website showing how great it “supposedly” worked.

The netting came in a 3ft x 6ft section. They guy there told us to order 2 pieces and put in the comments not to cut it so we would get a 6 x 6 piece. We both did that and both of us got two 3×6 pieces……. so that cost me around $75 total.

The day I decided to test it the temperature was about 20 degrees. The picture below is my friend sitting on the ground with the netting draped over him.

The picture below is the same location as the one above using my Pulsar Axion Key XM30 thermal scope from 20 yds away. Can you tell thats a person??? Yeah me too.

The image below is from us putting the netting in some bushes with an airgap between my friend and the netting but also the netting between him and I. You can still tell something is there. This is still 20 yds away.

I decided to try something else. I wanted to get more space between my friend, the “thermal” netting, and I. He backed into this culvert at least 10ft from the netting and I was 50 yds on the outside away from the netting.

In the picture below is my buddy shining like a light bulb behind that “non-thermal” blocking netting from 50 yds.

So obviously I was pretty irritated. My friend had a piece of 4 x 6 cotton cloth with him. He wanted to try that against the thermal optic. We strung it up behind 2 bushes and he stood about 1.5 ft off the fabric. What do you know it blocked his thermal signature….. see below. I had him hold his hand up to show the heat difference.

I had to try the thermal netting one more time. I strung it up where the cotton cloth was and tried the same thing. As the 2 pics below show this netting is a waist of money.

Fast forward a few weeks. I still wasn’t done with my quest to have some sort of thermal blocking cover. I decided to go the cheap route. I’ve know emergency thermal blankets will block alot of heat but I also wanted some normal camouflage ability also. Amazon to the rescue! I bought the thermal blanket and some cheap digital desert netting. I just tied the four corners of the netting to the four corners of the blanket with tarred bank line. This setup cost me about $35.

We were basically in the same area as the first test. I had my friend just cover up with the new setup making sure no part of his body was showing. The 2 pics below show how well he blended into the natural environment. If you weren’t looking for him you would walk right by.

In this first video I messed up and was looking at the wrong spot. I could have kept it out of this post but this is probably the best video I could have posted. The reason I was looking at the wrong spot is because I COULDN’T tell where the hell my friend had been laying looking through the Thermal scope. He had been there also 5 minutes by the time I filmed both videos.

https://youtube.com/shorts/QdkTnpt7eEo?feature=share

This is the second video I took. At this point I knew exactly where he was lying. As you can see this setup completely blocks out all thermal signature even after 5 minutes under the blanket with it in direct contact with him.

https://youtube.com/shorts/-vr9nlQ-b-4?feature=share

Finally I had heard the netting I used had a huge IR signature. I had to test that also. The first picture below was of the netting with no IR light and 50% moon illumination. The second picture is with the IR illuminator on. Do you see a difference and does it look bright enough to matter? I will let you decide.

My final thoughts are that netting I bought is garbage. The cheap emergency blanket works 90% better that Government thermal netting.